A Lamp Upon the Threshold
Bala Kanda, Doha 21
Doha 21 · Movement 2 of 2
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At dusk, a house stands between two darknesses. One gathers in the rooms within. The other settles across the road, courtyard, trees, and distant fields. Upon the threshold, where inside and outside meet, a small jeweled lamp is placed.
So Tulsidas sets the Ram Name upon the tongue, the doorway between the hidden heart and the spoken world. Its flame travels inward through memory, fear, and desire. The same flame travels outward through word, action, and encounter. No second light is needed.
Whoever longs for illumination in both realms need only tend this lamp.
On the tongue's threshold, one flame illumines two worlds.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 21
A jewel-like lamp on a doorway threshold evokes the Name's light within and without.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 45 · printed pages 43. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-022. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Source advises placing the jewel-lamp of Rama's Name at the tongue/mouth threshold for light within and without
Artistic choices
- Lamp on architectural doorway threshold expresses the inner/outer light comparison; no bodily flame
- Lamp design, house, cloth, vessels, light, garden and distant temple imagined
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
राम नाम मनिदीप धरु जीह देहरी द्वार। तुलसी भीतर बाहेरहुँ जौं चाहसि उजिआर।।21।।
Tulsidas counsels: place the jewel-lamp of Ram's name upon the threshold of the tongue, at the doorway of the mouth. If you long for light both within and without, this single lamp is all you need.